Max Herman/Borderless MagazineAfter years of waiting, Chicago’s Rohingya community now fears longer delays to reunite with loved ones as Trump suspends refugee admissions.
In the heart of Chicago’s West Ridge neighborhood, nearly 2,000 Rohingya refugees have found a sense of belonging after fleeing persecution in Myanmar.
Since making Chicago their adopted home, the community has remained hopeful they will soon be able to reunite with their loved ones left behind.
But President Donald Trump suspended refugee admissions under the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program on Jan. 20, effectively blocking the path to resettlement for countless lives now left in limbo. The suspension also comes as the U.S. has moved to cut foreign aid to Rohingya refugees living abroad. Now, the Rohingya community mourns the possibility of a reunion for family members and loved ones they left behind.
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“We have no place to call home,” said Abdul Jabbar, a Rohingya refugee who fled Myanmar when he was 12. “The Burmese government never recognized us as citizens—they said we were foreigners.”
Trump’s administration’s refugee suspension and aid cuts have prompted Jabbar to think about his immigration journey. He fled military persecution in the violence-stricken region of Rakhine in 1996. He spent years without legal status in Malaysia, enduring constant fear of arrest.
“Without documents, life was a constant struggle,” he said. “You could be detained at any moment.”
After 16 years of uncertainty, he resettled in Chicago in 2012. He worked in a restaurant while learning English, but his dreams of earning a degree were put on hold. “I’m the only son in my family. I had to work to support my mother and sister,” he said.
Jabbar’s mother eventually fled to Bangladesh in 2015. Last year, his sister attempted to cross the border but was arrested by Bangladesh’s Border Guards. “She’s now detained on an island between Bangladesh and Myanmar,” he said. “They’re demanding money for her release.”
As the conflict in Myanmar continues, the Rohingya community continues to use every chance they get to flee the country. According to The Business Standard, 58 Rohingyas were detained by Bangladesh Border Guards fleeing Myanmar to Bangladesh by crossing the border without legal status.
A Crisis of Survival
The Rohingya are a Muslim minority and have been denied citizenship since 1982. They have been subjected to genocide in Myanmar, which has drawn global attention and condemnation.
Nearly one million Rohingya live in overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh, most of whom fled Myanmar’s military crackdown in 2017. An estimated 600,000 remain trapped in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, confined to camps and villages under severe restrictions and cut off from food, healthcare, and education, according to Human Rights Watch.
“Most Rohingyas living in Burma are either living in a camp or living along with three or four families together in a small shared apartment,” said Jani Alam, employment specialist at RefugeeOne.
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Nearly 70,000 Rohingya have fled from Rakhine to Bangladesh from famine in 2024 —a 50% increase from previous years. The United Nations Development Program recently warned that Rakhine is on the brink of an “acute famine,” threatening more than two million lives.
Meanwhile, the resettlement process for Rohingya refugees remains painfully slow.
According to Abdusattor Esoev, the International Organization for Migration chief of mission in Bangladesh, the resettlement process resumed in 2022 after a 12-year hiatus and only recently started to gather momentum.
Alam spent 15 years in Malaysia before resettling in the U.S. in 2011. He described the resettlement process as sluggish. “No one can tell you how long it will take to be resettled,” he said. “So many people spend 20-40 years in camps in Malaysia before being resettled.”
Language barriers remain a challenge for Rohingya refugees in the U.S. “In Myanmar, Thailand, Bangladesh, and Malaysia, refugees…barely have access to education,” Alam explained. He and Jabbar were both teenagers when they fled Myanmar, but by the time they were resettled in the U.S., they had families to support, making it nearly impossible to return to school.
“I worked in a factory while taking ESL classes in college,” Alam said. “I even started the Gateway College Program but couldn’t finish it because I had a full-time job.”
For many, this prolonged limbo means lost opportunities for education. “The children in camps only have access to education provided by NGOs, which doesn’t exceed from grade fourth,” Jabbar said. “The situation of the camps in most countries is not good – people live in poor conditions.”
Policy Barriers and Uncertain Futures
The Trump administration’s suspension of refugee admissions has had a devastating impact on families like Alam and Jabbar’s. The policy allows exceptions only on a case-by-case basis if deemed in the “national interest.” The policy has left many Rohingya refugees stranded in overcrowded camps or in countries where they lack legal status and have access to limited resources like education.
Alam, whose brother has been waiting to be resettled in Malaysia for over a decade, witnessed firsthand how Trump’s policies upended lives.
After the executive order, Rohingya refugees in Malaysia panicked, he said. “Some refugees waiting to receive their flight tickets quit their jobs, broke their leases, and sold and gave away their furniture—thinking they were finally about to be resettled. Then everything was put on hold.”
The suspension of refugee admissions has also disrupted the work of organizations like RefugeeOne, which assists refugees and newcomers in rebuilding their lives. “If the 90-day hold policy is maintained over time… it will hinder not just our ability [as an organization] but America’s ability to be a place of refuge,” said Rich Hees, the development director at RefugeeOne. “That has been a part of our nation’s heritage and tradition from the beginning.”
For Rohingya refugees in Chicago, the emotional toll of separation is heavy. ShahAlam Ali, who was resettled in the U.S. in 2020, noted that many families remain heartbroken over being separated from loved ones. “They had hope…but since Trump’s administration…they are abandoning their hopes,” he said.
Despite the uncertainty, the Rohingya Cultural Center on the city’s north side remains a beacon of hope. The center provides various services to refugees and newcomers, including social services, English as a second language classes, and other immigration-related work.
Jabbar, who works at the center, and his colleagues provide vital services not just for Rohingya but for migrants from India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan as well.
“This center is our lifeline,” Jabbar said. It provides social services, after-school programs, and cultural education, creating a sense of solidarity for a displaced community.
The story for almost every Rohingya refugee is the same.
“Everybody is looking for a place to call their home,” Jabbar said. “This center is to remind our new generation of our identity as Rohingya.”
Fatema Hosseini is a Roy W. Howard Investigative Reporting fellow covering immigrant communities for Borderless Magazine. Send her an email at [email protected].
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